The Rebel’s Daughter (2 page)

“
What do
you suppose he wants?” Henry cocked his chin at the black-garbed
City Magistrate, who strode grim-faced down the path in their
direction, a hand raised to command their attention.

Bayle rapped the roof smartly and the
vehicle lurched into Fore Street, leaving the Magistrate standing
in the middle of the road, scowling.

“
His
duty can wait a little longer,” Bayle muttered.

Helena gave him a thin smile, unable to bring
herself to ask what that duty might be.

The carriage rumbled beneath the stone
gatehouse over the north gate and climbed the steep Longbrook, the
precarious sway forcing Helena to hang on to the strap over the
door, to prevent colliding with her brother.

Henry remained silent during the short but
oppressive journey home, his chin propped in one hand, his elbow on
the sill. He would never complain of his treatment at the church,
though Helena knew he felt the rejection keenly. She pouted and
blew air upwards creating a breeze that lifted the “favorites” at
her temples. She would be glad to get out of this stifling coach,
albeit suspecting the rest of their Sunday would be no more
restful.

* * *

Helena strolled the lawn in the
garden,
tearing off leaves from the thick hedge, only to drop them
at her feet as she walked. Her mother relaxed on a bench piled with
cushions set against the garden wall, while their steward Lumm
played a game of ring taw with Henry.

“
Shouldn’t that game be played on a hard surface, and
standing up, Henry?” Helena asked, irritated by Lummis attitude.
Their steward would never have lounged on the grass so casually in
her father’s company. His shirt lay open at the neck and he had
removed his cravat. Even the buttons on his jerkin were
undone.

“
It’s
too hot to go racing about,” Henry answered. “Besides, I’m
winning.” His marble hit Lummis with a crack and sent it out of the
makeshift circle of stones they had arranged on the
grass.

Defeated, Helena turned away, waving her
feather fan lazily in front of her face, the fronds catching on her
damp skin. The heavy fragrance from the overblown eglantine blooms
clinging to the wall threatened to give her a headache. A dribble
of sweat trickled between her shoulders, and her skirt clung to the
back of her legs. A housemaid appeared from the rear kitchen door
carrying a pewter tray on which were a jug and goblets. She crossed
the lawn and set it down on the stone table between the three
curved stone benches like a miniature amphitheatre.

“
Thank
you, Milly,” Helena said, eying the tray. “I thought my tongue
would shrivel up in this heat.”

“
Pity you can’t sweeten it a little too.”
Henry laughed at his own joke. Lumm punched his arm
playfully.

Helena swallowed her sharp retort,
suddenly aware she had been brittle, and maybe snappish, lately.
Who could blame her? With nothing to do but household chores best
fit for servants, and waiting for news, no wonder she was
bad-tempered.

A window on the floor above opened. A hand
appeared, waved a white cloth, then pulled the window shut again
with a bang.

“
I
wonder where Father is now?” Helena asked no one in
particular.

“
Seeing
off King James” men, I expect,” Henry said. Teeth gritted, he spun
his marble as he threw, sending Lummis into the longer grass. The
steward groaned, and Lady Elizabeth clapped politely.

Helena caught her brother’s set jaw,
something no one else appeared to notice. He was almost sixteen,
hardly a child any more. Yet their father had almost laughed when
Henry asked to go with him to Lyme.

For weeks beforehand, Father and Uncle Ned
had shut themselves up for hours with a succession of anonymous
visitors he forbade anyone to see, much less ask about.

Helena had tried to listen at the door
once, but heard only a low murmur of male voices, the chink of
glass on glass, and an occasional short laugh. When the distinctive
sound of a chair being scraped back had threatened discovery, she
had turned on her heels to flee, barging straight into
Lumm.

Strong hands had closed on her upper arms,
and his eyes had danced with amusement. “I beg your pardon,
Mistress.”

Her thoughts raced in search of a credible
reason for her being crouched outside the door. She had squirmed
from his grasp.

Lumm
is smile remained when he had dropped
his hands, as if what he held had no more effect on him than a sack
of flour. “May I assist you, Mistress?” he had said with a smile,
reaching past her for the handle.

Mumbling that she had changed her mind,
Helena had retreated. With a mocking bow, he had disappeared into
the room, blocking her view of the occupants.

His triumphant laugh, followed by Hendry’s
yell of protest, brought her back to the present with a jolt. She
studied the steward from the corner of her eye, resentful of his
easy smiles and the way his thick brown hair hung loose on his
broad shoulders. Aaron should be here, laughing and playing marbles
with Henry, not him.

As if he sensed her thoughts, Lummis gaze
slid toward her, and he gave a slow wink.

Annoyed he had caught her looking at him,
Helena turned away, just as Bayle hurried across the grass. His
frantic face and the papers clutched in one hand confirmed her
suspicion that his return to the city that day had little to do
with obtaining supplies, as he had said. On a Sunday? Did he think
her so easily fooled?

Her mother’s face tensed at his fixed
expression. “What news, Bayle?” she asked, pointing to the bench
opposite her.

He sketched a bow as he sat, then removed
his wide-brimmed felt hat, leaving a ridge in his hair. “Well,
don’t keep us in suspense!” Henry demanded, his tone reminiscent of
their brother Aaron. “What does the newssheet say?”

Bayle swiped a hand across his brow,
smudging a white streak in the dust there.

He offered Lady Elizabeth the newssheet,
but she waved it away. “You may as well read it to us,” she said,
sighing.

“
According to this, Lord Feversham and the King’s men have
reached Somerset, my lady.” He waved the page instead, showing he
knew the contents by heart.

“
Feversham is in command?” Lumm looked up in surprise. “Hah!
John Churchill will feel slighted by that.” He handed Bayle a cup
of elderflower water from the tray. “Being overlooked in favour of
a Huguenot is a blatant insult.”

Helena brought her cup to her lips, then
grimaced, lowering it again and picking flecks of petals from the
surface. Bands of Huguenots arrived in Exeter each day with stories
of families in France being dragged apart, with children of
Protestant parents forced to accept the Roman faith. She and her
mother distributed alms to them sometimes, at St Olive’s, these
days referred to as the French Church.

“
If King
James is a Catholic.” Henry shielded his eyes with the newssheet
Bayle handed him. “Does that mean we all have to be Papists?” He
had discarded the peruke and tied his sandy hair back into a queue.
Helena liked him better that way.

“
I fear,
Master, that if he isn’t stopped.” Lumm rolled into a crouch, his
arms wrapped round his knees. “What is happening in France may
affect us here, too.”

Helena closed her eyes briefly, the sun
glowing red behind her eyelids. Isn’t that why her father had gone
to join Monmouth? To stop King James turning everyone into
Papists?

“
Perhaps not that,” Bayle said, his voice
soft. “From what I hear, he was more in favour of removing the
restrictions on Papists. Give them equal status to
Anglicans.”

“Huh!” Henry snorted. “How can they have
equal status? This is a Protestant country.” Henry quoted their
father word for word. Did he even fully understand what he was
saying?

Helena opened her eyes and caught the look
of understanding that passed between the steward and manservant.
Circumstances had wrought a change between them these last weeks,
where Bayle deferred to Lumm on duties he had performed since he
was a boy, and, Lumm for his part, often sought the older man’s
advice. Lumm might wear more velvet and fine linen than any steward
she had seen, but despite her misgivings, their combined presence
was reassuring.

“
Monmouth and Churchill used to be such good friends,”
Mother said, her voice low and distracted. “I met him once, such a
handsome man.” Mother gave a sigh, her eyes empty. Helena was
surprised she had been listening. Since her father had left,
Mother’s concentration had suffered. Her conversation had become
discordant, and rambling at times, or she panicked so badly she had
to be given sleeping draughts by her maid Ruth.

“
Says
here,” Henry read from the newssheet, “that Monmouth has gained
possession of Axminster, and saw Albemarle’s militia off outside
the town.” He pushed strands of damp sandy hair away from his
forehead.

“
Don’t
call them rebels, Henry,” Helena snapped, nibbling at a thumbnail.
“I hate that expression.”

“
When they reached Taunton,” Henry
continued, ignoring her, “the townsfolk lined the streets to
welcome the duke. A party of schoolgirls presented him with a
pennant.” He slapped the page, grinning. “You see, Mother? They
love Monmouth.”

“
It’s not all good news, Master Henry.”
Bayle batted away a persistent fly with a hand the size of a small
shovel. “There was that skirmish at Ashill.”

Helena jerked up her head and stared at
him. “What skirmish?”

“
A party
of Lord Oxford’s Horse tried to roust the rebel outposts.” A
rivulet of sweat worked its way down Bayle’s forehead. “Monmouth
lost four of his men, and many were wounded.” Lumm offered him a
lace kerchief, but at Bayle’s dismissive snort, returned it to his
pocket with a flourish. Lummis cavalier ways had always been a
source of amusement between them.

“
Did the
rebels kill any troopers?” Henry asked, tugging a wide leaf from a
nearby shrub and chewing the stem.

Helena winced but chose not to reprimand
him again. Bayle already knew she was a trial to her parents, and
suspected Lumm was fast coming to the same conclusion. “Not
subservient enough for an unmarried girl,” she had heard Bayle say
once.

“
They
lost three men.” Lumm leaned back on one elbow. “Churchill’s
Lieutenant Monoux got a pistol shot through the head for his
trouble.”

Henry raised a fist, and gave a loud
whoop, which was greeted by amused laughter from the two
men.

“
There
wasn’t supposed to be any fighting.” Helena slumped down on the
nearest bench, replacing her empty cup on the tray. “Father said
Monmouth was to take a contingent of men to London and demand King
James establish the supremacy of the Anglican Church. Now all the
talk is of armies marching, and who has claimed which town…it’s as
if we are at war.

“
Mistress Helena.” Lummis tone softened. “The king was
hardly going to sit back and let his nephew usurp his
throne.”

“
That
wasn’t the plan.” Helena’s voice rose as memories of the day the
messenger who came to tell them Monmouth had landed at Lyme with
eighty men, crowded her head. No dark, brooding stranger riding a
sweating horse into the courtyard under cover of night, but a
nondescript labourer.

How delighted her father had been to receive
his summons to Lyme. Uncle Edmund and Aaron could hardly wait long
enough to saddle their horses before they were gone.

The snap-snap-snap of a startled pigeon
crashed through the canopy above, brought back her thoughts to the
present.

“
Helena’s right,” her mother’s voice held tears. “They
should never have challenged the king. He’ll crush
them.”

“
Monmouth’s cause might still prevail, my lady. The people
still want him,” Bayle said

“
Don’t
try to humour me!” Mother snapped, her eyes flashing now where they
had been lifeless a second before. “King James has declared
Monmouth a traitor. His own nephew - and he wants him dead! What
will he do to my husband for the same offence?”

She grabbed the newssheet from
Henry and thrust it under the manservant’s chin. “Monmouth has
accused King James of killing his father and appropriating his
crown while the rightful heir was out of the country.” She jabbed
the sheet with a fingernail, reading aloud. “And here, it says that
his nephew must be,
“seized and apprehended,
together with all his,
adherents, abettors, and
advisers.”
She flung the pages onto the grass. “They’re signing their
own death warrants.”

“
But
Monmouth says…” Henry began, but she cut him off with a
snort.

“
Monmouth says,” she mimicked. “James the second is our
crowned King, and Catholic or not, anyone who says otherwise is
putting themselves on the side of the devil.”